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Rochdale 3-1 Barnet

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A disappointingly small crowd of just 2443 saw Dale record their first win of the season this afternoon. The crowd wasn`t helped much by about 50 travelling fans but whatever the excuses you`d have to think the increased prices are already driving people away from Spotland. It is something that I will be watching with great interest over the coming months, but unless we are really flying this season I can see crowds being a fair bit down on last term.

Anyway, on with the more pleasing stuff and today was a good performance. I had initially wrote this report as saying Dale started poorly but then I don`t think we did, particularly, we were just caught out early on. A long ball came into the area and Adam Birchall seemingly popped up out of nowhere and placed the ball with great precision past Russell. It was the worst possible start for Dale and they faced an uphill battle after just two minutes. With Dale not having scored in the opening two games thoughts switched to how we would manage an equalizer never mind winning the game!

Dale pressed on though despite the moans and groans of a small section of the ground and we were playing some neat stuff. Keltie continued where he left off on Tuesday, stroking the ball around at will, and I feel he was instrumental in Rundle also having a good game. He was seeing plenty of the ball out on the wing and causing the Barnet defence all sorts of problems.

Now then I`m going to admit I`m not a big fan of this short corner routine we seem to have adopted over the past few seasons but it did very nearly pay off today. The short corner was returned to Rundle by Higgy and he fired a cross which had the Keeper beat but unfortunately slammed against the woodwork. Shortly after Rundle cut inside from the edge of the box only to see his effort on goal go wide of the post.

A word then for the referee who was adamant that he was going to allow all handballs go unpunished. On one such occasion it seemed for all the world that the ref would have to point to the penalty spot but alas he waved play on.

Unperturbed by the penalty appeals Dale continued to dominate but the goal just didn`t seem to be coming. When the goal finally did come it was thanks to an instinctive piece of finishing by Adam Rundle. With Daggers miscontrolling a pass into his feet Rundle snapped at a shot with his weaker foot which went across the Keeper and into the net. Unfortunately the mood was dampened a little when the goal was met with that bloody Fratellis song.

With Dale now smelling blood Daggers struck to put Dale ahead just before the break. It was a great goal from him taking a volley from the edge of the box into the roof of the net. It was the goal he`d been waiting for and his hard work deserved, it wouldn`t surprise me to see the lad go on a good goal scoring run now.

So we went in at the break and the mood around the ground had certainly lifted with now talk turning to how many we`d get in the second half, how times change, eh!

Higginbotham was replaced by Toner on the hour mark and it`s fair to say he`s not having the best of times at the moment. His confidence seems to be shot and at the moment he`s not the player we know he can be but if anyone can get the lad back playing it`s HillCroft.

Toner, whilst out of position, did in fact have a decent half hour. His success came mainly from cutting inside and feeding balls into the strikers. He came very close to scoring too, controlling a bouncing ball before firing a volley just wide.

Dagnall was replaced by ALF after 69 minutes and can be proud of his days work and he deserved his rest. It`s become almost a cliché now but Alfie was his usual lively self and can consider himself very unlucky not to have scored.

First things first though, and Dale grabbed their third through Jon Shaw. Now then I haven`t spoken much about him in this report but there are certainly signs he`s getting there and this goal will do him the world of good. Another feature of the game had been the distribution of Sam Russell he really does provide another base for attack when time after time he is picking out the wingers in space. Anyway on this occasion Russell humped a long ball into the Barnet penalty area where Shaw was on hand to lash it home on the volley. It was a great finish and the look on Shaw`s face was that of someone with a huge weight lifted off their shoulders. When he was replaced by Thorpe a few minutes later he got the applause his hard work had merited.

Then it was pretty much the Alfie show. Firstly he had a close range effort blocked by the Keeper and then a header from a corner was cleared off the line amongst claims of handball. He would then burst into the box only to be dragged down by a Barnet defender but the ref waved play on. And that was that really for Dale who can now go into a tough trip away at Bradford with confidence.

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